1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to an information processing device, a network system, and a power-saving control method which are adapted to monitor a power consumption of the information processing device and operate the information processing device in an appropriate operating condition for promoting power saving.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, power saving is demanded in electronic devices. Also in information processing devices, such as copiers, facsimiles, printers, multi-function peripherals, scanners and computers, power saving has been an important issue.
Conventionally, in an information processing device, when the device is in a standby state in which the device is not used over a predetermined time, the supply of electric power to the main component parts is suspended or the supplied voltage is reduced in order to reduce the power consumption.
Conventionally, in companies or business offices, the limit of use of information processing devices, including copiers, printers, multi-function peripherals, etc. which are interconnected by a local area network, is defined for each company section on a monthly basis, for example. If the use amount of a certain company section has reached the limit of use, the use of the information processing devices by the users who belong to the company section is restricted in order to promote power saving.
There has been proposed an information processing device which supplies an information processing service, such as a copy service, a print service or a facsimile service, in response to a request from a client over a network to which the information processing device is connected, in accordance with a charging condition. For example, refer to Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-162397.
In this information processing device, the charging condition is determined based on the print data transmitted from the client, and a printing output operation is controlled based on the control condition transmitted with the print data. If the cost needed for the printing output of the requested print data exceeds a predetermined budget amount, the printing output conditions (such as the number of copies, a paper size, sorting, punching, or staple options) are changed to make the printing output executable within the budget amount, and the printing output operation is performed in the changed printing output conditions.
However, in the above-described information processing device according to the related art, when controlling the printing output operation, only the printing output conditions (such as the number of copies, a paper size, sorting, punching, or staple options) is taken into consideration and the power saving of the overall device is limited. For this reason, there has been a demand for reducing the power consumption appropriately and promoting the power saving in a planned manner with good availability.